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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27835735">Death Lessons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlover/pseuds/dragonlover'>dragonlover</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Freaky (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>C-PTSD, Gen, Horror, Spoilers, The Butcher Wins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:20:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27835735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlover/pseuds/dragonlover</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the switch back, the Butcher takes Millie as his unwilling apprentice and bullies her into learning how to kill people.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Human skin is remarkably fragile. It takes only the slightest pressure to rupture and bleed. Which is why you really should stop pulling at your bonds.”</p>
<p>Millie grimaced. It was true that the hard, scratchy rope was painfully digging into her wrists. She hoped that she could wear it out by rubbing against it, but the Butcher was right. Her skin would give out long before the rope would. “Maybe you should untie me.”</p>
<p>He smiled. She knew she amused him. It was probably the only reason he hadn’t killed her yet.</p>
<p>Returning to his lesson, he tapped an anatomy chart with the point of a kitchen knife while naming, as he put it, the main vulnerabilities of the human animal. She wondered if it was stolen from her school. She doubted it. They were always on the run now. Though it was impossible to know exactly where they were, it wasn’t likely to be Blissfield. The Blissfield Butcher didn’t come to town that frequently, anyway, and now he had a captive from there with him.</p>
<p>“Millie, are you paying attention?” His deep voice was soft, almost gentle, as he eyed her with a knowing look. If she didn’t know better, she would mistake him for a teacher, one of the nicer ones who would still call you out for misbehaving in class. Of course, the greasy knife-wielding Butcher was far from a teacher and the dirty abandoned shack was hardly a classroom.</p>
<p>“Thrust under the Adam’s apple, slash the arteries on the side. If I can’t reach the neck, go for the abdomen,” she repeated dully. “What if I don’t have a knife?”</p>
<p>He nodded, appreciating her engagement with his material. “Unfortunately, your body is too weak to do much with unarmed. My usual strategies are pretty much worthless to you. My only suggestion is to find a weapon or something you can use as one. Anything that can cut or pierce is about as good as a knife. Anything that can bludgeon is about as good as a cudgel. Be adaptive.”</p>
<p>“You know, I’d probably learn how to cut people a lot better if you let me… hold a knife?” It was a throwaway suggestion, not something she expected him to take seriously, just another ‘haha, you should let me go’ line.</p>
<p>However, he looked at her with a sudden fiery intensity. “If I do that, you’d better be prepared to use it.”</p>
<p>“Uh… huh?” Was that a threat or… was he inviting her to kill him? </p>
<p>He said something like that once before, back at home, before he killed her family. She grabbed his knife and charged him but froze in his gaze. ‘Keep coming,’ he’d urged, but she couldn’t move, and so he struck. He shot Char between the eyes and beat their mother to death with a wine bottle, and all Millie could do was watch in horror. He took her, and she let it happen. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. She couldn’t fight back, even though he told her to.</p>
<p>Stepping over to the chair she was tied to now, he clasped one of his huge beefy hands on her shoulder and squeezed hard enough to cause pain. “When I give you a weapon, it will be when I take you on a hunt. You know the kind of game I mean. I’ll expect you to make a kill yourself, to watch the light drain from the eyes of your prey. So, tell me, do you want me to give you a knife?”</p>
<p>Horrified, she shook her head no and whimpered, “You’re hurting me!”</p>
<p>He released her and, smiling sadistically, tapped her nose with the tip of his index finger. “Good.”</p>
<p>Jerking her head back in revulsion, she felt anger bubble up inside of her underneath all the terror. It flared up just enough for her to hiss, “Don’t you fucking touch me.”</p>
<p>He raised an eyebrow. “Yes… aggression. Just like that. Keep it. Nurture it. Fan the flames and thirst for the kill.”</p>
<p>The anger subsided and was rapidly replaced by the more familiar fear. She shook her head. “I’m not going to do that. Ever!”</p>
<p>“Oh, really?” He grabbed her chin and squeezed her cheeks, making her lips purse unnaturally. “I can do whatever I want to you, whenever I want. I just have to reach out and touch you, and you can’t do anything about it. How does that make you feel? Is that nice? Does it make you all warm inside? Or do you want to fucking murder me?”</p>
<p>“No, no!” she sobbed, her voice muffled. The tears were now freely flowing down her cheeks. “Stop it, please stop!”</p>
<p>“You’re pathetic. But we can work on that.” He released her and returned to the chart. “Where were we? Ah, yes… the heart. That reminds me. I wonder how Booker is doing? Maybe I should check in on him just to be sure?”</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare.” Her words came out in breathy sobs, not well composed, just the first thing that came to mind.</p>
<p>“Don’t I dare?” he challenged. “What do you intend to do about it?”</p>
<p>“I…” She stopped. He was right. There was nothing she could do about it. He had all the power. She swallowed. “Please don’t hurt him.”</p>
<p>He sighed. “Maybe I’ve been pushing you too hard. You’ve done very well for a weakling. I’d say you’ve earned a treat. All right. Booker is safe. What do you say?”</p>
<p>What kind of asshole expected thanks for not killing someone? She shouldn’t dignify it with a response. She shouldn’t feed this creeper’s already expansive ego. But the Butcher looked at her with a smug expectant expression, and she knew she couldn’t risk his wrath. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>His triumphant smile was so full of malice that she felt like she was facing the devil himself. “You’re very welcome.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After so much moving around, they finally were staying put in an abandoned shack in the woods somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Despite herself, Millie was starting to fall into a routine. Every night, the Butcher would hogtie her and leave her resting on a pile of rags to sleep. He would wake her in the morning, untie her legs, and let her relieve herself in a bucket before hand feeding her and tying her to a chair for class time. For the next several hours, he would teach her how to kill people. Then, exercise, consisting of him leading her outside on a leash and making her run around in circles with her hands still tied behind her back, followed by dinner, more time with the bucket, and back in the hogtie to sleep.</p>
<p>It was rough. Very rough. But the human spirit is prone to a certain flexibility, and she endured.</p>
<p>After a few weeks of this, Millie stopped feeling her violating circumstances as an active trauma and more as a hazy background suffering. She didn’t want to live like this, but when her options were taken from her, she coped. While going through the Butcher’s planned activities, she reflected on her life up to that point and wondered about the future.</p>
<p>Obviously, the Butcher wanted to make her into a killer like him. She wouldn’t let that happen. She’d die before she’d take innocent lives. But maybe it didn’t need to come to that. Maybe she could introduce a third option.</p>
<p>Her brain finally switched into a productive mode, actively trying to figure out what to do. As she saw it, there were only two other ways this could go: She could fight him into submission, even kill him, or she could somehow figure out how to get away and get to police protection.</p>
<p>She imagined she was still in actual school, not this awful perverted form of it the Butcher put in place, and she pictured herself getting out her notebook and writing down her options. Laid out in a more organized fashion, this list looked like:</p>
<ol>
<li>Become the second Blissfield Butcher</li>
<li>Die, either from murder or suicide</li>
<li>Fight</li>
<li>Escape</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, the first one was just not going to happen. She only included it out of completeness’ sake. The second one was sadly likely, but she wasn’t going to focus on that. As for the third, well… the Butcher was giving her plenty of insight into how to kill people, but she doubted she could find the will to fight back, let alone manage to subdue a huge brute like him in her petite girl body. The fourth option might be her best bet, but it had the obvious problem that the Butcher was meticulously careful to keep her tied up and under close eye.</p>
<p>In the blur of Groundhog Days that followed, she noted that the second option wasn’t the only one that had multiple versions. She amended her mental list:</p>
<ol>
<li>Become the second Blissfield Butcher
<ol>
<li>Voluntarily</li>
<li>Involuntarily</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Die
<ol>
<li>By murder</li>
<li>By suicide</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Fight
<ol>
<li>And subdue him</li>
<li>And kill him</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Leave
<ol>
<li>Through escape</li>
<li>Through being released</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<p>That was still a really sucky list, but more options were on the table. There was more she could work with. The first option and its corollaries were still not something she wanted to even consider. The second set… was still sadly probable. Now, the third one was probably what she should consider as a priority. If she could somehow get out of her bonds, get a weapon, and attack, she might have a real chance. She could figure out the details later. Even if she couldn’t kill him, she could conceivably subdue him with a lot of effort. However, the most attractive option set was the fourth one, avoiding a fight and just getting the hell out of there.</p>
<p>She considered what that would entail. It was similar to the option to fight in that she would need to get free of her bonds, but it had the added restriction of needing to get free while the Butcher was asleep or out. Trying to escape while the Butcher was able to observe her would just lead to an inevitable confrontation. That meant she needed to get free while hogtied, which was quite an imposing restriction.</p>
<p>So, what about him releasing her? In theory, that was the cleanest solution. It removed the need for sneaking around, getting free of her bonds, or picking a fight with a hulking serial-killer. However, it was also the most unlikely. She’d joked about the possibility of him letting her go, and he’d taken it no more seriously than in the gallows humorous context she presented it.</p>
<p>But maybe, just maybe, she could push the issue. If she didn’t joke about it, if she seriously asked to be let go… he would ignore her. Of course, he would. He wasn’t the type to care about other people or show mercy. Duh.</p>
<p>“Millie!”</p>
<p>She blinked, coming out of her mental classroom and into her actual murder studies classroom.</p>
<p>The Butcher glared at her. “If I catch you not paying attention again, I’m going to be annoyed.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, sir.” The word ‘sir’ came out naturally. That’s what made sense to say when showing a big scary man you respected his power, right? “It won’t happen again.”</p>
<p>He rolled his eyes and turned back to his anatomical chart.</p>
<p>“Uh, sir?” she ventured. “Can I ask you a question?”</p>
<p>Before… the Butcher entered her life and shot Char stone cold dead, she had once given Millie advice on what to do if she was ever kidnapped. According to Char, it was rare that bad guys would be entirely emotionless psychopaths, so what Millie should do is talk to them to forge a human connection so that they would stop thinking of her as an object to a goal and instead as a person as valuable as anyone in their lives. Of course, Char hadn’t anticipated Millie would one day be abducted by a real serial-killer, so in all likelihood this strategy would be completely ineffective on him. However, if Millie couldn’t make 4b a viable option, that only left set 3, and she really didn’t want to think about set 3.</p>
<p>He turned back and raised an eyebrow.</p>
<p>She took a deep breath and asked, “What’s your name?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There was silence. The Butcher just stared at Millie with his hard, cold eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She started to feel like she made a mistake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, his lips moved. He spoke in a low animalistic growl, “You know my name.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The Blissfield Butcher?” She shrugged. “That’s not much of a name. If you want to be technical, that’s an epithet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. You know my </span>
  <em>
    <span>epithet</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He rolled his eyes. “Is that everything?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just don’t feel comfortable calling you that?” she tried. Her voice came out whiny, even to her ears. It certainly didn’t sound persuasive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He raised his eyebrows. “Tough.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just… uh…” She tried to think of an alternative. Maybe he’d be open to a nickname? “Can I maybe call you… like… Butch?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stared at her like he thought she was the biggest idiot in the world. After a pause long enough to make her feel like it, he finally said in a strained voice, “If you like…?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cool.” She was pleased even with this small victory. Now, they could have a proper introduction. “I’m Millie.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.” The Butcher--Butch--blinked, somehow calling her an idiot with this simple movement. “I… </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah…” She remembered the surreal experience of staring at her own body with the brutality of an adult serial-killer showing through its face. “I was you, too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Butch snorted derisively. “Not well.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… I’m sorry?” She wasn’t sure what he meant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stepped closer to her, his eyes intense but--maybe?--not aggressive, just… engaged? She could hope, at least. It made her anxiety skyrocket all the same. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You weren’t me </span>
  <em>
    <span>well</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he clarified. “You fucked it up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She struggled to understand his point. It was hard when her heart pounded like a jackrabbit’s. Every instinct told her a vicious predator was in her vicinity and that she needed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>run</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>play dead</span>
  </em>
  <span> or just do </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> to dissuade him from acting violently. Her options were limited. Talking seemed to be the best action. “Be…cause I didn’t kill people?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tilted his head, studying her like… well, like she was something in a store he was considering buying. She didn’t know what she feared more, him wanting her for his purposes or wanting to discard her. Option 4b, him releasing her, started to seem less probable than 2a, him just killing her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The urge to beg for her life surged up inside her, but she bit it down. If she started on that track, he’d most likely get distracted, dismiss her, and continue on with what he was doing. If she just waited for him to finish his assessment, there was at least the possibility of change that could improve her circumstances.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A hint of a smirk quirked on his face. “For starters. You could have taken… all sorts of things. And you didn’t. Poor wimpy Millie.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He affected a mock-pout. It triggered a memory of Ryler mocking Millie’s hard life in much the same way. For all his deadly bravado, he wasn’t acting </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> different from an average bitchy teen girl. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It made Millie wonder if he retained any traits of hers from when he was in her body. Maybe there was something of herself there in him that she could reach out to and connect with? Or maybe she would just have to experience being bullied by someone resembling herself. It wasn’t like she ever was able to connect with Ryler, and it wasn’t for lack of effort. Millie just found herself pushed around by the bullies in her life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reached out a hand toward her face, and it told everything she had not to flinch away. Threading his fingers through her hair, he brushed it out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her unwashed hair was dry and matted, but he made a token effort to smooth it out, taking effort to be gentle and not simply ripping his fingers through the tangles. He studied her like she was his doll while she fearfully stared up at him. “You fucked up your chance to be me… just like you fucked up your chance to be you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, what?” She blinked, trying to figure out if she heard him right. “My chance to be me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not quite nodding, he tilted his head to suggest the idea of nodding while staring her down like a leopard seal preparing to jump onto an ice flow to devour a helpless penguin (she saw it in a nature documentary). “You won the jackpot, Millie, and what did you do with it? Flounder. And mope. I was better at being you than you </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> were.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I didn’t kill people?” she asked again. This time, an indignant undertone tinged her voice. Where did he get off criticizing her for not being a monster?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He rolled his eyes. “Stupid cunt. You understand nothing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, explain it to me,” she challenged, prickling at the misogynistic slur. “Why should I need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>kill</span>
  </em>
  <span> people to be good at being me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was like a switch was flipped. Suddenly, Butch’s eyes blazed with anger. He pulled his teeth back in a snarl and dropped his hand from her hair to her neck, curling his fingers around it and squeezing just enough to make her uncomfortable. “Because it’s better than being a fucking doormat! Look at you! Pathetic. Pushed around by that dumb girl, by… by everyone! Don’t you realize that they’d worship the ground you walked on if only you took the initiative?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Okay. This was certainly a change in the routine. Butch was now talking. Millie was successful in that regard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was also really fucking dangerous. Millie was in the deadly grip of a hostile mass murderer. The slightest twitch on his part could make 2a her endgame. She needed to keep him calm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Again, the urge to beg for mercy sprang up inside her. And, again, she quietly dismissed it. Butch simply did not react to that in a way that helped her. She needed to manage his aggression, but she also needed to keep him on this divergent path she initiated. Agreeing with him seemed like a wise course of action. “How… could I take the initiative?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could’ve popped that girl in the nose, for one,” he said, seemingly talking about Ryler. His anger abated as he spoke, now thinking constructively, and he relaxed his grip while still keeping his hand on her neck. He smirked. “Couldn’t you just </span>
  <em>
    <span>imagine</span>
  </em>
  <span> the look on her face? She never expects any resistance, then you show her you’re not to be fucked with?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A grotesque image entered her head, of Millie pulling back a fist and punching Ryler, crushing her nose and causing blood to cascade out. Except, it wasn’t her own form she saw, but Butch’s version of her form, dressed in Char’s red leather jacket and tight blue jeans. As the feminine Butch, Millie sneered as she watched Ryler cry, her tears diluting her blood into a sloppy mess that dripped all over and ruined her outfit. It would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>satisfying</span>
  </em>
  <span> to teach that bully a lesson.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bile rose up in Millie’s throat. She thought she might puke all over herself. Maybe disgusting Butch would make him leave her alone?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She forced herself to smile along with him. Forging an empathetic bond with him was the point of talking to him at all. This revolting concept of her brutalizing Ryler like him might be the way to getting him to appreciate her as another human being like himself. Beggars couldn’t be choosers when it came to topics a mass murderer cared about. “She’d… probably… cry? Like a little girl?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Butch laughed. It was a wicked, cruel laugh that chilled her to her bones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rejecting the impulse to cower from the kind of monster that could produce that laugh, she made herself think about how he probably saw the idea of her punching Ryler. Millie again imagined herself as him, ‘popping’ Ryler in the nose, smiling cruelly as he liked to smile, her lips coated in that bright red lipstick he painted on her face. She imagined herself as the sadist, as the bully, out-bullying Ryler. In that position, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>would</span>
  </em>
  <span> enjoy causing Ryler pain and humiliation, finally standing up to that bitch. “She’d… know who’s boss…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’d never bother you again,” he promised, punctuating the word ‘never’ with a quick jerk of his head to the side. “Might even beg to be your bitch. Keep her safe from the monsters that go bump in the night.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah…” She swallowed, trying to picture it. She imagined herself dressed in Butch’s feminine attire, stalking through the school, everyone watching her with respect, while Ryler trailed after her like a lapdog. It would be fun to look down at her coldly as she looked to Millie for the slightest bit of approval. A thrill of excitement ran through her, similar to what she felt when--back in his body--she scared the boy who liked to bark at girls.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then the fantasy came crashing down as reality set in. Ryler wouldn’t ever do those things… or anything else. Not now that he killed her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Too bad we’ll never get to see it,” she said bitterly. She remembered Ryler’s frozen body collapsing into pieces. “Whatever could have happened… It’s not gonna happen now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He paused, assessing her words. Mean little snickers erupted from his mouth as he smiled with a cruel expression of fondness. “Well, look at you, acting all tough.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Was she acting tough? She wasn’t trying to. Subverting him could make him angry. She just wanted to make a point about the importance of people’s lives, even Ryler’s, which he casually wanted to discard when he should care about everything he was destroying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He removed his hand from her neck and tapped it on top of her head in an overly firm pat that hurt a little as it hit her. It was like how a toddler tried to pet an animal, actively causing it harm. Except, while a toddler was forgivable for its ignorance, she suspected he knew damn well what he was doing. “No… the girl will never be your bitch. That path is closed to you now. But, you know what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” she asked. Caught up in the flow of conversation, she honestly wanted to hear what he was thinking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There will be others,” he promised. He turned and walked away from her, returning to his position at the front of the ‘classroom’ behind a wooden table approximating his teacher’s desk. Facing her, he raised a butcher knife like a judge raising a gavel and spoke softly, staring her in the eye, “Someday, they’ll all beg to be yours. And you’ll decide which to spare…” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He brought his knife down solidly, thunking its blade hard into the table’s surface, wedging it deep into the wood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…And which to kill.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am writing them as both having C-PTSD with Millie embodying the fawn personality type (of the 4F trauma responses) and the Butcher/Butch embodying the fight personality type, as well as being genderfluid in his gender identity. I suspect this was an intentional characterization in the movie and, even if not, will at least make the characters consistent and potentially interesting in my portrayals of them.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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